Dream Diary
by Puppeteer of the Realms
Summary: In the world of dreams, most would think themselves to be completely safe, free from harm, consequence, and responsibility. But when a young boy discovers he is a Dream Walker, his life will never be the same again, and his dreams will never be a safe escape from the real world.
1. Just Another Dream

A/N: I don't know what it is about RWBY, but it has captured every facet of my fascination and creativity. What started as a cool idea to do with some friends has evolved into my reason to listen to music, rather than listening to music for its own sake.

Though, I will give credit where credit is due, because this was created immediately after I was inspired by other works. The majority of this story in particular was inspired by the anime Black Rock Shooter for the fantasy aspect, as well as the anime I recently discovered Bakemonogatari. This was also inspired by several fanfics here, but one in particular, I feel I need to mention 'Free Runner' by Demeter Fenir for using the RWBY characters in the real world.

With that out of the way, I hope you'll enjoy my next tale and please review! I need all of the positive **and** negative criticism I can get. I'm not here to get attention, I'm here to grow as a writer. So please, tear it apart if you have to, guilt free. I can take it.

Thank you for your time, and thank you for reading!  
See you on the other side~

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**Disclaimer: I do not own, or claim to own RWBY. The series and affiliated copyrights go to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth.**

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One never remembers the moment they slip into a dream. They can't remember exactly when it happens, how long after their eyes closed until consciousness looses its grip just enough that awareness ceases. They can't remember what it feels like to fall into a deep slumber, all that is known is that at some point it will inevitably happen. The ever-present worries of daily life melt away until all that is left of the formerly imprisoned consciousness is freed into a world of its own creation. The ultimate release, true freedom in its own right, and yet at the same time, the perfect prison. How better to keep one caged than inside their own mind?

What cruel a being it must have been to create such a devious system. Yet this prison has never stopped a single person from shooting for the stars and chasing the very dreams used to keep them complacent. So is it a prison to sustain subjugation, or is it a tool for creativity to flourish? That, truly, is the question of the millennium. Whether it is a veiled threat, or a cherished blessing, one thing is certain: neither one explains, or warrants, the arrival of Them. But that is a story for another time. For now, one young boy had the pleasure of joining the ranks of the dreamers into the realm of the ethereal.

Just as it always does, his ocean of consciousness became black and muggy, nearly impossible to see through. Once his mind was fully unaware, he opened his eyes on the other side as the inverse of consciousness took the form of unconscious dreaming.

The impossible became reality, and the boy looked upon the vast cosmos which lay before him. He just floated there, not really knowing what to make of anything, nor did he really mind that he didn't understand. That's the beauty of a dream, there is no purpose, you are free to do what you will. The boy wanted to go closer to the spiraling galaxies before him, so he did. His mind was just a watcher, no real form in this place, just a spotlight that followed his commands as he bid it to. In just a moment's time, he closed the gap to the star-filled disc and an ethereal body expanded from his spotlight of sight and gave him perspective.

He had two arms, two legs, and a head. But the mind has a nasty habit of not being very specific in the realm of dreams. The proportions of his new body were vague and didn't stay consistent. Sometimes he would be a black silhouette with very long limbs that stood taller than the greatest of monoliths, sometimes he stood out in stark technicolor at the size of an ant. In this instance, however, he stood at the average height of a human. His body lacked anatomy: his face was blank and smooth, his hands were more like mittens and his skin was less a solid surface and closer to a white smoke with a thin layer of reflective liquid keeping it contained.

With his new body gaining weight and gravity, he slowly drifted down to land on the surface of a galaxy. Were he awake, he would easily recognize what every child knew to be their home: the Milky Way. As if to echo this unknown factor, he bent closer to look at the stars themselves. Each one was infinitely bright and warm, yet they were so far apart and they hid their warmth from each other, leaving the open gaps cold and lonely. The boy felt bad for the lonesome stars, so he shrunk down to the size of one and he floated around it, thinking himself to be keeping it company. As he neared it, he became acutely aware how hot the star truly was, and he had to quickly back away to avoid being burned alive.

The boy's fleeing form erupted into a stream of smoke, like a cloud being smeared across the horizon. The liquid film holding his form together burned away, so nothing held back the rest of his avatar from expanding and dissipating in every direction. With his heart fluttering in panic, the boy willed himself away, and he was away. When he opened his eyes next, he realized he actually _had _eyes to look through. Well, not literally, the face of the new form he found himself in was his favorite, but it still lacked eyes. It did not, however, lack a mouth, and he smiled at his luck upon winding up in this form.

His favorite form, the closest thing to a human form he ever attained in this world of dreams. It was his favorite because it was the most solid. That was really the only way he could rate experiences in the dreamscape, how solid or physical things were. It was a very vague system, and sometimes flawed, but it did the job. This body was just over seven feet tall, a far cry from human norms, but very bizarre in the realm of dreams. This form, unlike almost every other he could remember to date, was actually clothed. The others were all just vaguely humanoid and devoid of all features. His current form was also the only one he had ever been in when he saw his reflection, so he was also sentimentally attached to it. The boy named it Persona.

Persona had bone-white skin, toned muscle, and incredible flexibility. Although it was a special form of his, and by far the closest to his heart, it was still only a figment of his dreams, so some of the details of Persona didn't stay the same from dream to dream. In some cases, he had four fingers instead of five, and sometimes he even had four arms instead of two. This time was the former, he had two arms with four fingers and two legs clad in billowing black pants. His feet were adorned with traditional, ornate tabi shoes with a split-toe design. He wore a form-fitting sleeveless black body shirt with a silky black hood pulled over his head. Strapped on his right wrist, was a thick leather band with a metal clasp and a square metal loop almost like a chain link attached and hanging from the clasp. What purpose this clothing served never occurred to the boy nor did he care. All he knew was that Persona made him feel like a superhero whenever he got to play with it.

In a sense, Persona was like his favorite childhood toy. With a smile still painted on his face, Persona stood and took in its surroundings. He was standing on the apex of a tall hill overlooking the most alien formations of earth and stone imaginable. Floating mountains flew high in the sky stretching miles in the air, they gave a sense of godliness in the most overwhelming of ways. The landscape for the surrounding area formed a concave bowl, as if the aftermath of a massive crater now inhabited by lush plant life and outlined by rivers which all converged to the center, forming a large lake. At the center of the lake, a column of water snaked its way up and away from the surface to form a winding stream curving and twisting through the sky. More than anything else, the boy loved how alive his dreams were. They were always interesting, and he never had the same dream twice.

Persona wandered the dreamscape, just admiring the majesty that was his own creation, yet completely foreign at the same time. He scaled an arch of stone and sat upon the apex with his feet dangling. It only took him seconds to move from one point to another. Scale may be accurate sometimes, but the mind doesn't have the same observational skills when it is asleep. One can be anywhere they want to at anytime. They could also be everywhere at the same time, and yet nowhere. Everything that was not the avatar they took the shape of was part of them as well, so perspective was king in this world of fantasy.

The boy was content to just watch the world take its course through the 'eyes' of Persona in this dream. He scanned the massive bowl he sat in, noticing the large figures of colossal animals in the distance. He once tried to confront these animals and meet them, only to find that they had vanished moments before his arrival. From this distance, they were indistinguishable, fuzzy. Much closer, however, movement caught his attention below the arch he was sitting on. In the trees below, he saw flickering colors through the tall canopies of the immense forest.

Curiosity captured him, and Persona journeyed closer to watch. In a flash, he was below in the forest of twisted, gnarled trees. Even the most basic form of plant life in the reality, came through as strange alien like figures in a dream. The boy pushed the thoughts aside and he focused on gaining his bearings again. After practically teleporting from the top of the arch down to the forest, he had no idea where it was he saw the figures, so he started bounding from tree limb to limb in search of the anomaly that captivated his curiosity.

He soon flew clear of the trees as he came into a large expanse of plains, though they were no longer in the massive bowl with floating mountains. It was darker, colder, and full of mist. It almost felt like a graveyard on a far away island, too far to ever return from. Through Persona's own senses, the boy felt a cold chill snake its way up his spine. He didn't like this at all, it felt completely wrong. He had nightmares before, of course. Everyone did. But this... this was just wrong, it didn't feel like anything he had ever experienced before. Everything felt lethal, and threatening. Persona was going to flee, to turn around and escape into the forest where he could hide, but when he turned to do so the forest had vanished. All that remained was the barren, dead land upon which he stood.

Loud metal clangs pierced the quiet air like a dagger, and caused Persona to jump and immediately turn back to face the direction of the sound. He was no longer curious. He was only scared and confused. But, as it almost always went, he would have to explore the disturbance to get out of this place, or if all else failed, wake up. So he flashed forward at great speed and explored the area beyond the hill before him. Persona crested the top of the hill and stopped in his tracks, even more confused. The ground beyond the hill was, in fact, a mass graveyard. Crosses, tomb stones, graves, gnarled deformed trees and wrought iron fences dotted the entire dreamscape. Terror took the place of fear, and inaction gripped his legs.

Another loud clash rang through Persona's skull, this time from behind him. He turned again and just as before, the area behind him vanished to be overtaken by this mass grave. He could feel his heart pounding in his throat, every fiber of his being told him to turn and run, and this time he did so. The boy ran for his life, or for what he _thought _was his life. The dreamscape always finds ways of making you forget that this was not real, so sheer terror drove his legs beyond anything a human would ever be capable of. But he was not fast enough.

Something smashed into him from behind, sending him tumbling to the dirt as he smashed into a tomb stone and skidded to a halt before a mausoleum. Persona shuffled to stand, but only got to a sitting position and froze before an imposing figure. The person standing before the boy practically embodied his fear. It was a tall woman with long, dark red hair, wearing a gothic styled dress and a crimson cloak with a sinister red hood pulled over her eyes. She gazed down upon Persona through narrowed eyes, the eyes of a killer. She was not unarmed. The woman held a massive, evil looking scythe in her hands, already dripping red from the pointed tip of the blade.

The boy wanted to scream, to make Persona bellow with terror and wake himself up, but his voice caught in his throat. All he could do was meekly raise his arms in defense as his mouth hung agape, inoperable. The woman mirrored his imagined fears, and she raised the wicked scythe behind her, then swung. The razor sharp point closed the gap at incredible speed, but vanished. A flash of unimaginably bright color blinded Persona, blotting out everything.

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Vlad's eyes shot open. For half a second, he laid under his blanket frozen in place, before he shot up and took in a massive breath. He started hyperventilating in panic as his left hand shot up to his neck, feeling around for anything.. wrong. His eyes were wide open, his head throbbed, and hands were clammy, and his whole body was coated in sweat. Vlad cast his blanket aside and wrangled himself free on the sweat-soaked sheets to swing his legs free of the bed and drop his feet flat on the ground. He rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands, heavily sighing and shaking himself free of any lingering doubt.

"It's just a dream.. It's just a dream.." Vlad repeated this several times in a whisper, getting more and more quiet each time before he was silent again. _But man.. it was a realistic dream. _He stood and stretched, realizing how much he stunk from the film of sweat coating his skin. He immediately began rummaging through drawers for clean clothing and getting ready to bathe, but cut himself short when he realized the most important part of his morning. Vlad closed the drawer and picked up the leather-bound book sitting on his nightstand. He clicked the light on and sat on his bed with the open book and his pencil.

_Dear Diary,_

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A/N: In the event you've read either of my other stories 'Team REPR' or 'The Shadow That Almost Was', it may or may not be necessary to point this out, but, this **is** another AU from my own 'canon' that is Team REPR. Just trying to avoid any confusion. (And yes, I really love Vlad that much. He's my favorite OC I've ever made)


	2. Daydreaming

A/N: So, yeah... I was going to finish this chapter the day after I published the story.. but my internet can go eat a dick. So get this: I get back from work on Monday, hyped and ready to continue my tangent. What happens? My internet provider killed our service... because my grandmother changed her credit card... and wasn't even in state to fix it... So I offered to pay the bill, went half and half on the payment with my dad, and here we are.. as my creative juices have almost completely settled.

Meh, whatevs. What happens happens, and there's nothing I can do to change it.

See you on the other side~

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**Disclaimer: I do not own, or claim to own RWBY. The series and affiliated copyrights go to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth.**

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Vlad closed his bedroom door behind him and dropped his weight into the office chair in front of his computer. He ran both hands through his still slightly damp hair in frustration. He had never been this thrown off by a dream before, but something just got to him. Up until the end everything felt fine, but he couldn't remember exactly what happened to cause him to panic so suddenly.

Something was just.. off. That's all he could remember. Feeling _wrong _in the dream, just before he woke up. Vlad, as it so happened, had a very unique gift. Unlike most people, who just experience dreams without much call in the going-ons of their subconscious, Vlad was able to lucid dream as far back as he could remember. That's why he loved going to sleep. It was not eight hours of rest and inactivity. For him, it was eight extra hours a day for him to live his own fantasies. That's also why he had the diary.

Every morning, immediately after waking up, Vlad would write down as much as he could in his dream diary. Last night's entry was a rather bizarre one, however. The beginning was pretty typical, nothing spectacular. Though, trying to hug a sun wasn't very pleasant. One would think it wise to avoid doing so in their next dream, or ever for that matter, but another fail-safe of dreams is the factor of forgetfulness. As a kid, you learn that if you touch the stove, it is very hot and you will get burned. Next time you wouldn't touch the stove. Dreams aren't so simple. Every dream is like being born anew, a clean slate. Even for Vlad, a habitual lucid dreamer, it proved very difficult to bring outside knowledge into his dreamscape.

_The dreamscape.. _On that note, Vlad grabbed his diary and reread the latest entry.

_'Day #3467_

_Dear Diary,_

_Last night started with another space dream. I felt bad for a star, I thought it was lonely. I tried to get close, but I got burned in a cloud-like form. I can't remember pulling anything relevant from the real world into this. I'm going to call this new form Mercury, because of the reflective skin._

_I got to be Persona again. It's been almost a month since I last felt human in a dream. Most of the rest is a blur.. and definitely not normal.'_

Vlad idly spun his pencil between each of his fingers, vaguely remembering a detail he forgot to add in today's entry. He spun the wooden pencil and caught it between his index finger and thumb, before finishing the entry.

_'I met a woman dressed in black with a red hood. She'_

His hand paused and he contemplated how best he should word the final sentence. Vlad sat there for a full three minutes before erasing a word and continuing.

_'I met a woman dressed in black with a red hood. I don't ever remember creating such an imposing figure. She is by far the most solid projection to date.'_

It felt satisfactory, but still incomplete, so he added one last statement.

_'She also terrifies me the most, above all else. Even _Them_.'_

This was Vlad's dream diary, so he didn't hide the fact he was scared, it was for his eyes only. But he stubbornly, and irrationally refused to acknowledge what he called 'Them'. The problem at hand, however, was his irrational obsession with this woman that ended his dream. The only reason he even remembered her was because that was the last image locked in his mind as he regained consciousness. The only fragment of the end of the dream that wasn't clouded, or confusing.

Her.. and the scythe. In an after thought, Vlad massaged his throat again as the surrounding muscles tensed. He tried to deny it, but something about that woman captivated him, and he couldn't shake it free. Now that he thought about it, she wasn't just the most solid projection he had ever created, she was the most solid _anything _he had ever created. Like a potter accidentally creating a diamond from clay. Vlad smiled and corrected that last thought with an ironic twist. _Like a potter accidentally making a_ _ruby._

"Vladimir!"

The teen jumped at the sudden call of his name from downstairs. He was deep enough in thought that he almost forgot he was even sitting in the real world at all. The perks of being a dreamer came with the burden of being a thinker. "Coming!" he responded to the female voice, hoping his own voice carried through his closed door. Vlad quickly pulled a clean shirt over his head and slipped his arms through the sleeves. He was dressed in a plain pair of blue-jeans with frayed holes revealing his knees. After shifting his plain black tee to sit comfortably on his chest, he ran his hands through his raven colored hair and combed it out of his cerulean eyes with his fingers.

Vlad wasn't too big on appearances, so he just left his messy bangs sitting somewhat lazily swept to the left. With urgent - admittedly sloppy - movements, Vlad bolted through his door and almost fell down the stairs as he descended two steps at a time.

"What's up?" he asked through shallow breaths as his heart caught up with the adrenaline.

"I've been calling for about ten minutes now," Luka droned with an annoyed expression. Luka was more than twice the age of the fifteen-year-old, taller, slightly darker, and generally looked nothing like her son. Then again, that tended to happen when they were adopted. At the age of twenty-three years, Luka adopted the six-year-old Vladimir Ebon from an orphanage she herself attended when she was in similar circumstances as the teen. Though at the time, they agreed not to refer to each other as mother and son, but paperwork and the law said otherwise. Acquaintances often raised recurring questions to the two of them when prompted on the strange relationship, much to the teen's dismay and Luka's immense amusement at Vlad's embarrassment.

"Fine, whatever. Point?" Vlad retorted as he rummaged the fridge for anything to catch his eye. Nothing did, so he withdrew from the door and closed it with a small frown.

"I'm going to the mall and thought you might like to tag along," she said from her spot leaning against the counter opposite the refrigerator. Luka had long, almost impossibly straight black hair which stretched half-way down her back. Her facial features were refined and almost exotic, making her very beautiful.

"And what? Follow you as you shop for bras and... stuff. Whatever else women shop for? I think I'll pass," Vlad resigned as he scratched the measly stubble on his chin.

"Actually, I figured you would want to check out the new occult bookstore there." Luka cupped her hand over her mouth, seemingly in contemplation. In reality, she was hiding a sly grin.

Vlad froze in place, his eyes locking on a point far away. After a few seconds, his mouth seemingly moved on its own, voicing his thoughts. "Occult, you say?"

"Occult. It's called Aether." The older woman no longer covered the grin as she crossed her arms. _I've got him now, _she thought as she watched the gears turn.

Sure enough, Vlad grinned on cue and he locked eyes with Luka. "Deal." To be certain, the relationship between the two of them was just dysfunctional enough to be like playful siblings.

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Vlad sat at a small table isolated from the multitude of other people gathered in the large food court. He sipped on the drink in his hand as he flipped through the pages of the book before him. Page after page was edged by a border of archaic runes and glyphs, each one elegant and more intricate than the last. The body of each page, however, was completely bare. The paper itself was somewhat crude and almost cloth-like in texture, riddled with imperfections and dark spots. The string binding the pages together was tight, and somewhat frayed on the edges. The smooth, matte black cover was etched with precise pin-striping and leather work, complimenting the metalwork making up the traditional key-hole lock on the front cover which connected to the leather strap and latch hanging from the back cover.

Over his nine years of records, Vlad went through quite a few journals. This one was by far his favorite - and most expensive - to date. Although the journal tucked away in the messenger bag on his back still had a few months left in it before it would be retired, he liked to think in advance. Vlad's irrational phobia was the possibility of not being able to record his granted eight hours of sleep each night. As far as he was concerned, dreams were to be cherished and collected like gold coins. Then again, he was under the assumption he was no different than anyone else. To Vlad's naive views on life, everyone had the same kind of dreams he did.

The pale teen deliberately blinked several times, realizing he was sitting there staring at the empty book for several minutes, once again lost in thought. A sudden giggle from a table at the edge of the food court in front of him caught his attention. The laugh itself caught Vlad's attention less than the appearance of the girls who sat at the table itself. Of everyone in the entire building he had set eyes on so far, none of them could hold a candle to the vivid color and flair of the four girls.

Vlad sat the styrofoam cup down and held the blank book closer to his face, to hide his watchful gaze from any onlookers. One of the girls, tall with long, fiery blonde hair was leaning back on two legs in her chair as she began to burst out in a chest-heaving laughter. The contrasting teen across from her wore an icy scowl as her face began to brighten to a vivid red, and her eyes narrowed to threatening slits. Vlad couldn't tell if the platinum-haired girl was either glowing red with anger, or brimming bright in embarrassment.

The girl next to the blonde - a calm, solemn looking girl with the same black hair as Vlad topped with a.. bow? Vlad paused his analysis of the third girl as his eyebrow raised in surprise. _That's not something you see everyday. _The girl with the bow hid a smile behind her hand as she watched her companions through radiant gold eyes.

Going through them one by one in turn, Vlad's eyes finally settled on the fourth girl at the table. This one puzzled him. She wore a black and red hoodie, with the hood pulled almost clear over her eyes, and sat completely and utterly still. The only perceived movement the girl gave off was her mouth silently making the shapes of words. Vlad slightly shifted his weight to sit higher, and he saw she was reading a book sitting before her. Now even more puzzled, he shifted his weight back down and this time caught sight of her eyes. A shiver went up his spine with the sense of déjà vu. Her eyes were half closed, and conveyed zero emotion. She looked like a dead body mechanically reciting some kind of incantation bid upon it by some long-lost master.

_Ding. _Vlad immediately tore his attention away from the girls and pulled out the pen from a pocket on his messenger bag behind him. He clicked the button and opened the first page of his new journal.

_'The Woman In Red'_

Whenever inspiration hit, Vladimir wasted no time to immediately act on it. Spurred on by the memory of his dream and this strange, trance-like teenager, he began writing whatever freely flowed through his mind's eye.

_'...Standing alone amid the crumbling headstones, she cradled the eroded remnants of a withered mask...' _Within just a matter of minutes, he filled up half of the first page. After ending the short passage, he attempted to quickly sketch a rough portrait of the woman in his mind's eye. The image in his head was that of the scythe-wielding woman from his dream, her deadly gaze boring through his skull. Once again, without realizing it, Vlad began to let his mind wander as his hands were occupied with the image forming on the parchment. He began imagining what exactly it was that brought on the image to begin with. Some subconscious fear? A desire maybe? Perhaps.. a memory?

His mind continued to wander until the image in his mind moved again, and he willed the visage to act, as if on its own will. A painful thorn sprouted in Vlad's mind, causing a wave to crash over the shore of his consciousness, disorienting him. He clenched his eyes shut, not realizing that he also clenched the muscles in his hand. When he opened his eyes again, Vlad found that he had dug his pen in and tore the first page, dragging a long scar of ink along the page originating from the corner of the woman's eye.

Vlad quickly shut the journal and rubbed his eyes, trying to wipe away the electric pain behind them. He stood and stuffed his things into his bag and cursed under his breath as he knocked over his drink in his haste. With his scowl deepening, he quickly wiped up the mess with some napkins and left before he made more of a scene.

Little did he know, Vlad was being watched since the moment he ripped the paper.

* * *

"So that was him, huh?" Yang huffed as she stood and stretched.

"Maybe? I only saw him oOOOOOOOOOOoonnce.." Ruby answered as her statement trailed off into a yawn.

"Oh come on, you're still sleepy?" Yang whined as she tried not to get tied up in a contagious yawn.

After a few seconds with no answer, Weiss drifted her somewhat bored gaze to the red-headed teen next to her. "Wha- Really?" she guffawed, looking to the others at the table. "She's already out cold!"

"Shhh, she's hunting," Yang quipped with a wink and a grin.

"More like haunting. Am I the only one who feels bad for that kid?" Blake asked rhetorically as her bow almost imperceptibly twitched.

"He chose his side. He has no sympathy from me," Weiss deadpanned as she eased Ruby's head off the table and onto the girl's own arm. "This is war. He is the enemy. It's that simple."

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A/N: Even with the annoying setback, this was still a fun chapter to write. I hope you've enjoyed the story so far!


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